Sawt Falasteen - US medical panel insists it's 'pro-vaccine'

President Donald Trump's top health official, the anti-vax crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., handpicked the members of the medical advisory group that will vote on whether to alter the standard childhood vaccine schedule, despite warnings from across the medical and public policy communities that dire consequences could result.

"We are currently experiencing heated controversies about vaccines, and a key question is, who can you trust?" said the chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), biostatistician Martin Kulldorff, in opening the two-day meeting.

He then criticized the American Academy of Pediatrics and the recently fired director of the US disease prevention agency, who told a Senate health panel Wednesday the Trump administration sacked her for refusing to pre-approve vaccination schedule recommendations without first analyzing science that would back up that advice.

Kulldorff insisted that members of the panel would "welcome scientific critique of any of our votes, as there are gray areas due to incomplete scientific knowledge" but cast as "false" accusations that the group's members are "unscientific."

On Thursday's ACIP agenda is a vote on whether to recommend delaying childhood shots including against the highly contagious disease Hepatitis B.

The Covid-19 vaccine is also on the docket, as well as the combination MMRV shot that covers measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella shot, which is offered as an alternative to separate MMR and chicken pox injections.

Earlier this year Kennedy fired all 17 members of the influential ACIP committee and replaced them with members whose vaccine skepticism tracks more closely with his own.

Their first meeting promoted anti-vax themes and raised questions about long-settled medical debates.

The revised committee and its agenda has triggered concern across medical, scientific and policy communities that ideology rather than science will guide the future of public health in the United States.

"Vaccines have added decades of life to our life expectancy. They have helped Americans live healthier lives. There's so much here that's riding," said epidemiologist Syra Madad.

She told AFP shifting the childhood vaccine schedule "is like pulling bricks out of the foundation of public health."

"It risks collapse, and creates real consequences for every community in America."

Experts including Madad say the votes could prompt unnecessary confusion and concern among parents.

Revised recommendations could also restrict federal funding of vaccines for low-income families, or shift requirements for private insurers.

- Preying on 'ignorance' -

Kennedy has spent decades promoting vaccine misinformation, including the widely debunked claim that the MMR shot causes autism.

He has also taken aim at the Hepatitis B shot. Since 2005 ACIP has recommended administering the first dose to most newborns within 24 hours of birth, to prevent any maternal transmission of the disease, which can cause severe liver damage.

But because Hepatitis B is also spread sexually and through needles, Kennedy and his allies have questioned why newborns need protection from it.

Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, said that notion is "a play on people's ignorance."

"RFK doesn't get rewarded when he prevents perinatal Hepatitis B, he gets rewarded when he panders to the anti-vax movement," Adalja told AFP.

The committee is also expected to consider this season's Covid-19 shot, including who should get it and who should pay for it.

Q.Jaber--SF-PST